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Policy divergence and asymmetric regionalism: comparing agendas in Catalonia and Scotland

Peter John
Kings College London
Laura Chaques
Universitat de Barcelona
Peter John
Kings College London
Anna Palau
Universitat de Barcelona

Abstract

Many European States have decentralized in response to growing ethnic mobilization, the demand for more efficient delivery of services and from the regional dimension to greater European integration. These reforms - and the bedding down of regional institutions - give an opportunity for new topics to enter the agenda because powers have been transferred to new institutions, which have a degree of autonomy to make policy choices independent of the centre. Nonetheless, financial and legal controls from the centre, and the existence of common policy problems between central and locality, may constrain the regional policy agenda and point to continuing convergence. This pressure for conformity may be particularly the case when regions have different powers than other regions in the same state as is the case in Spain and the UK – what is called asymmetric regionalism. Regions may take time to develop autonomous policies because of party links between the regional and the centre. Once jurisdictions are transferred upwards and downwards the question is whether the political agenda in the UK and Spain is increasingly concentrated in a few issues (as many others have been transferred), whether regional agendas are increasingly more fragmented as they gain jurisdiction over a wider range of issues, and whether national and regional agendas are related to each other. The aim of this paper is to compare the extent to which the regions of Scotland and Catalonia have diverged from national policy priorities. The method is to take the topics of legislation from the Scottish and Catalan parliament since 2000 and to correlate per cent attention to each policy topic over the period since 2008 between the central and national government on policy areas where they share powers. The hypotheses are that there is divergence in both Spain and Scotland; that divergence increases over time; that divergence is greater the more the topic is controlled by the region, that divergence changes with when party control is controlled by a region; and whether divergence increases according to issue characteristics.